Natural Versus Human-Made Disasters

Disasters, for the most part, occur without warning and can have devastating effects. Forces of nature and geological shifts in the earth’s inner core can instantaneously alter the lives of individuals and entire communities. When this happens, the cause of the event can be scientifically explained. Sometimes disasters are not natural events. Consider instances where human action caused the disaster. What if entire neighborhoods are destroyed by fire as a result of an individual intentionally starting a wildfire? What if an airplane crashes due to human error and kills hundreds of people? What if the lack of effective road and bridge maintenance leads to an unnoticed structural error, which later results in the collapse of a populated bridge in a busy city? At the same time, natural disasters can become more catastrophic due to human influences such as climate change, the manner in which communities build cities to withstand disaster, or social segregation causing greater impacts to some communities over others.